A Matter of Honor (Dusty Fog Civil War Book 6)

by J. T. Edson

  ‘Whooee!’ Billy Jack breathed, glancing to where Kiowa was taking the hand from the back of his neck. ‘There goes a jasper who’ll never know how close he come to being made wolf bait.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed the Indian dark sergeant, looking first at the speaker then to the small Texan. ‘And I thought you could run a bluff at poker, Billy Jack. But don’t you never ask me to sit in on a game with you, Cap’n Dusty.’

  ‘I’ll mind it,’ the young captain promised. ‘But would you have figured out what we really are in his place?’

  ‘Likely not,’ Kiowa conceded.

  ‘Well, we’ve found what we come after,’ Dusty stated, making sure Cryer had gone from view. ‘I don’t see the guards put on them, though.’

  ‘Or me,’ the sergeant declared, after studying the two vehicles. ‘Could be inside, maybe.’

  ‘We’ll likely find that’s where they are,’ Billy Jack claimed, with his usual pretense at pessimism. ‘Let’s go look and make fools of ourselves.’

  Scanning their surroundings with great care, the Texans resumed their advance. They were surprised and pleased on reaching the wagons to have escaped being challenged and to receive an indication that they were incorrect in their assumption. As the canopies were secured, it struck them as unlikely the guards would be inside. Yet, from what they had been told by Barnes, they had expected a watch to be kept. What they and he had failed to take into account was the type of men with whom they were dealing.

  Having ambitions towards a career in local politics, Cryer was ever ready to curry favor with men who might one day be in a position to give him their votes. Therefore, when left in command, he had not tried to enforce the instructions given by his superior. Nor were the enlisted men of the Volunteers any more prone to attend to their duties voluntarily. The only reason the lieutenant had come across the Texans was that, the major commanding the camp having decided to make the most of him before he departed in the morning, he was assigned to be officer of the day.

  Putting down his box as he and his companions reached the nearer wagon, Billy Jack studied the lashings of its canopy. Something of a master of handling ropes, he had promised to do all he could to unfasten and then retie in the same fashion whatever kind of knots were used. Giving a sniff of disdain at what his eyes and questing fingers discovered, he found not the slightest difficulty in carrying out the first part of his task.

  As soon as a sufficient gap was made, Dusty climbed into the wagon and Kiowa closed the flaps behind him. Opening the box, he felt for and removed a box of matches and a candle. Using one of the former to light the latter, he examined the interior with the aid of its small glow. His main attention was given to two large carboys in protective coverings standing at the front. Climbing over the other items, all of which had been packed carefully to prevent any chance of them sliding against and breaking the containers of the lethal liquid, he placed the box between their wickerwork covers. Then he reached inside.

  The box contained a combined explosive and incendiary device which could be detonated by a clockwork mechanism!

  Carrying out the instructions received from the butler, the small Texan set the timing mechanism to perform its function at the end of four hours. By doing so, he hoped to cause the destruction with the wagons well clear of the camp and reduce loss of life as far as possible. Waiting until he heard the gentle ticking, he retreated to the back of the wagon and, blowing out the candle, emerged.

  ‘The other ’n’s ready for you, Cap’n Dusty,’ Billy Jack informed. ‘I’ll fasten this the exact same way it was while you’re ’tending to it!’

  An hour later, the Texans rejoined Barnes.

  ‘We did it,’ Dusty announced, although the butler had made no request to be told. ‘Now it all depends on those infernal devices you gave us.’

  ‘You can rely upon them to function properly, sir,’ Barnes claimed with complete confidence and his austere features came as close to smiling as the Texans had ever seen. ‘And may I say that I will derive not a little pleasure from seeing my employer’s face when he hears his precious liquid is gone. In my opinion, while a general officer, he is not a gentleman. ’

  ‘Never yet met a Yankee who was,’ Billy Jack lied, for there were several—including Colonel Iain McDonald—he regarded in such a light. ‘Thing sticks in my craw, though, is that son-of-a-bitch who made the god-damned stuff’s still around to whomp up some more of it.’

  ‘Not for long,’ the butler replied and, although his expression and tone never changed, there was something in his demeanor which caused the Texans—experienced in such matters—to conclude he was a man whose path it would be exceedingly dangerous to cross. ‘Mr. Aaranovitch is no horseman and will, I anticipate, be riding on one of the wagons. However, should this not be the case, or he survives the conflagration, I will ensure he is not able to repeat his efforts. I hope, nevertheless, the need does not arise. If he dies after eating a meal I have prepared, it may arouse adverse comment with respect to the quality of my cooking.’

  Sixteen – I’ll Show You How to Kill Fog

  ‘It’s not guilty!’ Major Saul Montreigen reported without any preliminaries, wondering whether the news he and Sergeant Major Alden Packard had brought was already known to his glowering and obviously furious superior. ‘The court preferred Fog’s story to that of our friend here, but he came out of it just clear of being charged with perjury.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what the verdict was, or how he came out of it!’ Brigadier General Moses J. Buller raged, without so much as a glance at the scowling and very worried non-com. ‘All the god-damned liquid gas had gone!’

  It was eleven o’clock on the day of the court martial of First Lieutenant Kirby Cogshill!

  Commencing promptly at nine o’clock, after the charges had been read, the prosecutor had tried to obtain a postponement because one of his witnesses was not available. On learning how Corporal John Silkin had sustained the injury which prevented him appearing before them, the officers forming the court had declined to delay the proceedings. Sensing from the composition of the court that its members were unlikely to be concerned with the possibility of arousing Buller’s wrath, Packard had toned down his story until it appeared he was merely misled by the behavior of the young lieutenant and had, in fact, based his complaint upon what he was told by the absent corporal. Having heard the evidence given by Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog and his two men, the court had not even bothered to leave their places before announcing a verdict of ‘not guilty’.

  At the suggestion of the adviser from the Adjutant General’s Department, the General had not attended the court. Instead, while waiting in his suite of rooms at the best hotel in Mushogen, he had received the news which put him in the state of vile temper he had displayed to his two subordinates on their arrival.

  ‘Gone?’ Montreigen repeated. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘How the “mother-something” hell do I know?’ Buller snarled. ‘The wagons blew up on their way here!’

  'Blew up?’ the major queried.

  ‘That’s what I said!’ the General bawled. ‘And don’t ask me how it happened!’

  ‘Aaranovitch knows how to make some more,’ Montreigen pointed out.

  ‘Aaranovitch was riding on one of the god-damned “mother-something” wagons!’ Buller answered savagely. ‘Why the hell didn’t I make him give me the formula?’ Then he looked at the other officer with mingled suspicion and hope, going on in a somewhat less hostile fashion, ‘You were with him all the time he was working on the son-of-a-bitch. Surely you know how he made it, or at least what he used?’

  ‘Not me,’ Montreigen lied, but with such vehemence and apparent disappointment he might have been speaking the truth. While the chemist had not told him any more than was known by the General, he had had a man with similar knowledge acquire the information unbeknown to the producer of the liquid gas. ‘He wouldn’t let anybody be in the kitchen when he was working on it. Hell, I tried,
but all he did was stand around and do nothing until I left.’

  ‘God rot his guts!’ Buller snarled. ‘Didn’t you even have the sense to make a list of the things he bought to mix it?’

  ‘I tried doing it,’ the major admitted truthfully, the failure having caused him to make use of a second chemist without disclosing anything of the purpose of the various items. ‘But he always ordered everything himself and the containers it came in were marked in a way only he knew.’

  ‘Somebody had to know, though!’ the General said, more to himself than his subordinates. ‘I can find them and get in touch with whoever it was he got his gear from and then I’ll easy enough find another chemist to make me some more.’

  ‘There might be an even easier way,’ Montreigen suggested, having hoped such a possible solution had not occurred to his superior. ‘Aaranovitch had got real cozy and lovey-dovey with Cryer, so maybe he was told the formula.’

  ‘He took it to hell with him if he was!’ Buller asserted. ‘The idle, useless bastard was riding on the wagon with Aaranovitch!’

  ‘Is there a chance of finding something about it from the wagons?’ the major inquired, although the last thing he wanted as things had turned out was an answer in the affirmative.

  ‘Not a single god-damned part of a hope!’ the General replied bitterly. ‘Aaranovitch told me the god-damned stuff was highly inflammable and the son-of-a-bitch was all of that. The man who brought me the news said both wagons were burned down almost to the axles and, except for the bodies that were blown off, everything else was gone.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Montreigen wanted to know, Packard having concluded the best thing he could do was remain silent and hope his failure to procure a verdict of “guilty” against Cogshill would be overlooked in the face of this latest disaster.

  ‘At a hollow where the trail runs through those woods about three miles out of town. That and the trees all ’round must have stopped the explosion being heard.’

  ‘Who told you about it?’

  ‘The men I sent to find out why the wagons hadn’t got here,’ Buller answered. ‘Everything was over when they got there. But from what they said, I reckon that useless bastard, Cryer, didn’t get moving until long after I said for him to be on his way here.’ Pausing to suck in a long breath, such was the depth of his emotion, he continued, ‘From what they heard, the wagons were rolling along when there was a couple of bangs and first one, then the other son-of-a-bitch went up in a sheet of flames. Those of the escort who weren’t blown up got thrown off their horses when it happened and still hadn’t been able to either get back to the bridge or come here!’

  ‘You say there were a couple of bangs before the fires started?’ Montreigen queried. ‘One in each wagon?’

  ‘Of course it was one in each wagon!’ Buller growled, having no intention of admitting he had not thought to raise the point when hearing the news. ‘That’s why they both went up in flames.’

  ‘How?’ the major inquired.

  'How?’ the General snarled. ‘Some of those god-damned chemicals must have got knocked and did it is how!’

  ‘They’ve been brought a long way and not handled over gently on occasion,’ Montreigen reminded his superior. ‘So why did they suddenly go off and not just one wagon, but both almost at the same time?’

  ‘What the hell are you getting at?’

  ‘I’m always suspicious of coincidences, particularly when they happen so inconveniently.’

  ‘Are you saying somebody blew them up deliberately?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Who could have done it?’

  ‘How about the Rebs?’ Montreigen suggested.

  ‘Rebs!’ Buller snorted disdainfully. ‘Nobody except—hell, only you and me are left who know. So how would the Rebs have found out?’

  ‘They’ve got some pretty good spies all through the North,’ the major supplied. ‘In fact, thinking about what happened to Flannery, I’ve been asking around ever since we left Washington. From what I’ve heard, one of the best they have is a slender, but well built, real good looking girl called Belle Boyd.’

  ‘Belle Boyd?’ Buller gasped, the description arousing a disturbing thought.

  ‘They call her the Rebel Spy, she’s so good,’ Montreigen elaborated. ‘According to what I’ve heard, she can fight bare handed like a sack filled with starving bobcats and is better than fair at that French kick boxing they call “savate” and, going by what you said about that fight at Wigg’s, the “French-Canadian” girl showed she was pretty handy at it.’

  ‘She was!’ the General conceded vehemently. ‘But—!’

  ‘She’d grown up among them and could make herself sound like a high-toned rich Creole the major continued remorselessly. ‘Which’s why she wouldn’t talk French to me, in case I’d have known for sure she wasn’t from Canada.’

  ‘Nobody knew what I’d got Aaranovitch doing!’ Buller protested.

  ‘There was enough around who knew something was going on,’ Montreigen countered. ‘And, even if it had only been trying to find out a new way of preserving food like we said, those god-damned Rebs would be even keener than our own folks to learn what was doing. The more important they thought it might be, the more likely they’d be to use the Rebel Spy to get to know. Then, having found out, you can bet everything you’ve got they’d be bound and determined to stop you proving how effective that liquid gas could be.’

  ‘But she ran out the night she saw it!’ the General objected, trying to convince himself he had not been made a fool of by the girl introduced to him as “Francoise”.

  ‘That could be because she’d had to kill Flannery when he caught her going out to tell another of their spies what she’d learned,’ the major guessed, drawing a similarly accurate conclusion with regards to the reason for the comment. ‘And there was the time you stayed on in Washington trying to set up that deal with Mary Wilkinson. That would have let them get word to Ole Devil Hardin, so he could stop you turning the gas loose on his men.’

  ‘Hardin?’

  ‘He’s the Reb general who’d be affected first by it.’

  ‘I know that!’ Buller snorted. ‘But how the hell did he get it done?’

  ‘Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Hardin would take all the trouble he did just to save the neck of a Yankee luff?’ Montreigen inquired, feeling sure his uncouth and unprincipled superior would have neither a conception of nor belief in the Southron code of honor. ‘And can you think of a better way to have three of his men, those three in particular, allowed into our territory?’

  ‘It can’t have been them!’ the General protested. ‘They were kept at McDonald’s place all the time.’

  ‘And would be able to come and go as they pleased, because he trusted them to keep their word,’ the major replied. ‘From all I’ve heard about Fog and his men, they could have sneaked out, got horses, gone to the camp on the Mushogen River, put some kind of infernal devices set off by time mechanisms, and been back without leaving a trace of it, before morning.’

  ‘By god!’ Buller thundered, face reddening with rage. ‘I’ll go and have all three of those bastards taken and—!’

  ‘That’s not the way to deal with it!’ Montreigen warned, moving to block the impending departure of his superior. ‘You haven’t any proof that they did it!’

  ‘Just let me have them,’ the General spat out, seeming to be on the point of grabbing and throwing aside the other officer. ‘And I’ll soon enough have the god-damned truth out of their son-of-a-bitching hides!’

  ‘McDonald will want to know why you’ve taken them before you can do it,’ Montreigen pointed out, showing no sign of flinching before the other’s wrath. ‘And, if you give him the truth—!’

  ‘God damn it, I out rank the Scotch bastard!’ Buller thundered, having halted, his voice filled with a close to petulant fury. ‘He’ll have to take whatever reason I give him!’

  ‘Unless it’s the truth, you’ll need a stronger
story than I can think up for such action!’ the major contradicted. ‘Don’t forget, his career would be on the line seeing as how it was him insisted on allowing them to come here. He’s smart enough to figure there was something out of the ordinary in those wagons, from the way they burned so violently, even without the Rebs believing their cargo was worth taking such trouble to get rid of it. What’s more, Fog is Hardin’s nephew and he’ll do anything he can, even to letting McDonald know why the young bastard was sent. He could even get word of it to Washington and that’ll do what you’ve been trying to avoid. Even if the General Staff decided to follow up on Aaranovitch’s work, they’ll make good and sure you don’t have a chance to sell the formula to other countries.’

  ‘Are you saying I’ve got to sit back and let that short-grown peckerwood bastard get away with what he’s done?’ Buller demanded.

  ‘No,’ Montreigen replied. ‘If you’re game to try it, I’ll show you how to kill Fog in a way that won’t let Hardin know you suspect what he was up to and, the reputation he’s built up, what with capturing Cussing Culver and all, you could even come out of it with some favor.’

  ‘If that’s what you reckon,’ the General growled, thinking of how his predecessor in command of the Army of Arkansas had been captured by the young Texan, and of other incidents attributed to the same source. ‘You tell me how I can kill him and I’ll show you I’m game enough to try it!’